In a battle of 7-6 teams, the Minnesota Vikings are set to take on the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday afternoon. The last time the Vikings played on Saturday afternoon was also in week 15. They beat the Indianapolis Colts 39-36 in overtime, setting a record for the largest comeback (33 points) in NFL history.
The Vikings don’t have the greatest history against the Bengals. The series is tied 7-7 but the Vikings are only 1-7 in games played in Cincinnati. Their only win in Cincinnati came in 1992 where they won by a score of 42-7.
Heading into Saturday’s game, our staff took a look what the expectations for starting quarterback Nick Mullens.
Managing editor Tyler Forness
Expectations are a difficult thing to parse out for Mullens. Right now, the Vikings are playing with house money. They don’t have their starting quarterback and have had a myriad of injuries across the board. The expectations for Mullens should be simple:
Move the football.
He doesn’t need to be overly explosive nor does he need to score 30+ points. Just protect the ball, control the clock and take advantage of opportunities to get points/ If he can do that, the Vikings should be in good position to get the win.
Columnist Judd Zulgad
Mullens isn’t going to be a cure-all for the Vikings’ quarterback situation, but he has had two seasons in O’Connell’s offensive system and should help to stabilize things after Dobbs’ struggles continued in Las Vegas. Mullens, 28, has started 17 games and played in 25 during his career with San Francisco, Cleveland and the Vikings. He has 27 touchdown passes, 23 interceptions and has lost four of eight career fumbles. No one is expecting a standout performance from Mullens. If he can limit his mistakes and manage the game, he will have done his job. That doesn’t seem like it’s too much to ask
Columnist Saivion Mixson
The reality is that Mullens will be prepared to go for his start on Saturday. He has been in this system for years and have been in similar schemes since he entered the league in 2017. He has had his good games, like when he was in San Francisco and threw for 262 yards and three touchdowns in his debut against the Raiders. Now he has a chance, after another good performance against the Raiders, to lead the Vikings into the playoffs.
As for Saturday, I won’t put much expectation on the 28-year-old Mullens. I think he will be competent due to his familiarity with the system. There will be a few frustrating times where he simply doesn’t execute his progression properly or gets to a check-down a tick too quickly, but he should stay away from the catastrophic mistake.
Columnist Chris Spooner
The optimist in me wants to say that so little is known about Mullens that he can catch the Bengals off-guard and have the kind of fleeting success we’ve seen other backup quarterbacks have. The kind where he comes in for a few games, lights the world on fire and sparks conversations about whether or not he should be the guy going forward, only to inevitably flame out and show the world why he’s always been a backup.
The realist in me knows that there’s plenty of tape on Mullens for teams to know who he is, and therefore he’s not going to catch anyone by surprise. That said, Mullens has some weapons around him in (hopefully healthy) Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and T.J. Hockenson. He should also have plenty of familiarity with the system that head coach Kevin O’Connell runs in his second season with the team, which should help his production. Ultimately, it’s less about numbers and more about wins. No one is going to remember the numbers he puts up if it doesn’t get Minnesota anywhere, and no one is going to care if the numbers are ugly if Minnesota wins.
